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Mississippi Turfgrass Association – Member Spotlight Interview with Maria Tomaso-Peterson
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Mississippi Turfgrass – Julie Holt, Content Director, TheTurfZone.com
The Turf Zone: Welcome to The Turf Zone. In this episode of Mississippi Turfgrass, we’re speaking Dr. Maria Tomaso-Peterson, Research Professor in Plant Pathology at Mississippi State University. Maria, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today.
Maria Tomaso-Peterson: Thank you, it’s a pleasure to be with you this morning.
TTZ: Let’s start in your early years and get a little background about your career path and your education. So where did you start on your path to becoming a plant pathologist?
MTP: Well, I started in ornamental horticulture and I got my B.S. degree in that and in that curriculum, I was very interested in plant propagation, and this was back in the early 80s, so a long time ago and I was very interested in tissue culture, which was state-of-the-art back in that time. I was interested in pursuing a Master’s degree in tissue culture, and at Mississippi State, the only person that was working in tissue culture was Dr. Jeff Kranz in turf. I’d had his class, turfgrass management, my last year and I really enjoyed that and the students I met in there. I met my lifetime friend, Melody Fraser, who’s at PureSeed testing now. I started with his program doing tissue culture in turfgrass and my project was to select disease resistance for creeping bentgrass germplasm. I kinda was like, “Oh, good grief, fungi.” I hated plant pathology class, I thought “What am I going to do?” But I settled in and I was working with rhizoctonia solani, which I learned to love working with that organism. After my Master’s, I became a research assistant under Dr. Kranz and I continued my Masters work, which was the in vitro cell selection for brown patch resistant germplasm for creeping bentgrass. Then I attended an international turf research conference, it was in the U.S. that year, down in Palm Beach, and I knew I wanted to move on in my education, so while I was down there, I attended a lot of talks. I listened to a talk by Dr. Monica Elliott, she was describing bermudagrass decline for the first time to an audience, and I was just taken aback and just was like this is what I want to do. So I started on that career path while working as a research assistant on my Ph.D., so it took me a long time to get my Ph.D., but I think it’s kind of interesting that I’m ending my career working with ectotrophic root infecting fungi that cause bermudagrass decline or take-all root rot. It’s just kind of interesting the paths that life lends to you, the doors that open. It’s beena while, but it seems like it was just yesterday, and it’s just been great. So that’s how I got here.
TTZ: I always like to hear who shepherded folks along their path and their career, and you mentioned Dr. Krans. Who else helped you determine your route?
MTP: Well, once I determined I wanted to go into plant pathology, I had a turfgrass management student working for me at the time, Gary McCullough, who was kind of instrumental in some of the paths I took, a very dear lifelong friend, and he told me, “You need to teach turfgrass diseases to our student.” And I was like, “Oh, I can probably do that.” So after
seven years of working with Dr. Krans, I had an opportunity to become the research assistant for Dr. Larry Trevathan, who was in plant pathology, and he was working with weed in turfgrass, so he was in turfgrass trials and I talked with Dr. Krans and decided if I was going to do plant pathology, that was where I needed to be. But at that time, I told both of them that my objective in changing, in doing this was to develop an emphasis in turf pathology at Mississippi State for turfgrass management students. Now it’s Golf and Turfgrass Management, Golf and sports. So I was able to do that and they gave me the freedom to go and Dr. Trevathan and I worked with Dr. Krans in their golf course operations lab. For one semester, we taught turfgrass diseases, and we had a huge class. Stephen Miles was in it and several others, too many to… I can’t remember all of them, but I think it was very successful, so that was kind of our test to see whether or not it would be something the students would want and could utilize that information. And after that, we went ahead and created a two-hour lab class, which was on Thursday and Friday afternoon. So only the dedicated students took that class. We did that for several years until I got my position as a faculty member after I graduated and then I developed it into a traditional course, meeting twice a week with a three-hour lab. So Dr. Krans and Trevathan were very much supportive in my vision, in what I wanted to do and without their support it wouldn’t have happened.
TTZ: It was around 2003 when you became a faculty member, and that was when Dr. Mike Goatley moved from Mississippi State to Virginia Tech?
MTP: Yes, 2004, January.
TTZ: Tell me what’s the best advice, speaking of mentors and learning and carving out your path, what the best advice you’ve been given by someone in the field?
MTP: Early on, it was people that supported me in making the decision to work on a Ph.D. and to move forward. And without their support and my husband’s support, a lot, to do that because I just had a little baby, so it was all happening at the same time, they gave me the confidence that I could do it. And my husband gave me the time to put into it by taking care of our son and letting me study and do all that extracurricular work.
TTZ: That’s great to have a support system at home when you’re in the trenches of Ph.D. work, I can’t imagine.
MTP: The first six years, I think it took.
TTZ: I admire you, I don’t understand how you guys make it through those years, and especially having small children and continuing to have a life outside of your work. So now that you have survived that phase and you’re reflecting back on a career, what would your advice be for someone at that same point that you were at, beginning a career, whether it’s education or actually a turf professional job?
MTP: You have to find your passion, and something that you love and are excited every day to wake up and go to work and persevere through it. Because a lot of it is just perseverance and working towards your goals. Not to give up. But if you don’t love what you do and aren’t passionate about it, I don’t think that person is going to be happy in their choices. Find something that you love, and that’s what I’ve told my graduate students as well, is find something that excites you and that you’re passionate about because you’re going to spend the rest of your career in that area.
TTZ: That’s great advice. So what do you like most about the work you do?
MTP: It’s like solving a puzzle in pathology, whether it’s turf or other plants, but I love the diagnostics, and that’s what’s really opened a door for me is turf diagnostics and working with golf course superintendents, problem solving. When you receive a sample that came from across the country, you’ve got a four-inch cup cutter plug that was taken from maybe a 3500 square foot green, so it’s this little snapshot of what the superintendent thinks is the worst problematic area, and then it’s my challenge to solve that problem. So it’s kind of like CSI – you’ve kind of got your host, which is the victim, and then the unsub is the pathogen that’s killing it. And through that work, I’ve discovered and characterized many novel fungi associated with diseases… so through receiving disease samples, I’ve been able to characterize a new disease, ink spot. And it was a fungus that had never been described before, so it’s fun to be able to name fungi and characterize them. We’re currently doing that with some ectotrophic root infecting fungi that my former student, and now professor at Rutgers, Phillip Bynes, identified in his thesis research. So we’ve characterized two of them which means they’re novel, so you have to identify them based on morphological and molecular characteristics and it’s nice to be able to expand that knowledge base in fungal taxonomy and in turfgrass diseases and that community as a whole. To expand, bring forward new fungal species that are causing disease that have been overlooked in the past. So that’s the part of the job that I love. And then working with the superintendents after I come up with answers, talking to them about how to approach disease management. So that’s the best part. And also teaching the students in my class, because so many of them have gone off to golf courses and they become the people that are sending me samples, so I still have a connection with a lot of former students from back in the day, so it’s kind of a family. The turf community is small, and it’s nice because you can get to know a lot of people and routinely see them or talk to them on the phone throughout the years.
TTZ: Okay, I’m coming back to this CSI analogy, you’re speaking my language. I need to know if there has ever been a crime or a mystery that you haven’t solved in your analogy here. Have you ever been stumped?
MTP: Well, that first disease, it came in on a 328 putting green sample and I thought the disease was dollar spot and what we normally do is we’ll take infected tissue and we will plate it onto a nutrient medium and let the fungus grow out, so this was a Friday night I was doing that. So I cleaned up some tissue and put it on nutrient medium and I came back on Monday and saw this fungus that was very black and I was like, “What in the world is this?” And through
a lot of studying that fungus, and that was when molecular tools were just starting to be used, and I didn’t have a molecular background, but some of my students had a little bit of background and I knew we had to extract the DNA and use a barcode gene for fungi to get an idea of who it was. Well, that took about six years to successfully resolve that mystery, and right there, it’s perseverance. Because I could’ve easioly just put it on the back shelf and moved on, but I kept coming back to it. And we kept getting more samples coming into our plant diagnostic lab with those characteristic foliar symptoms. Because of that, I was like, “Okay, there’s something out here.” But, yeah, it took about – well, I started working on it in 2007 and we published the characterization of the fungus and disease in 2016. So you just don’t give up.
TTZ: Aside from six-year-long projects, what is the greatest challenge of your job?
MTP: I don’t think there really is a greatest challenge. Because whatever is thrown at you, you just buckle down and do it. Initially, for me, it was doing presentations to a lot of people. That was hard. Talking in front of 200 people, those were challenges back in the day. But through teaching, I got used to communicating and talking about turf. So, I got over that, but it’s still challenging to put together talks that the audience would receive and get useful information out of. So when I was invited to do talks, to me that was the challenge of making sure my talk provided information that the audience could use and it was useful information, so I guess that would be it.
TTZ: That makes sense for sure. What’s the most significant advancement you’ve seen in turfgrass in your career?
MTP: You know, I lived through when bentgrass was first introduced into the south, and it was wonderful grass, but it was difficult in the summer and then when they started to introduce, in the early ‘90s, the ultradwarfs, I saw the challenges that they presented in terms of management, thatch control and how superintendents had to evolve and learn on the fly, basically, how to manage the grass because it wasn’t like the dwarfs, Tifdwarf and 328, management. A lot of diseases came with those ultradwarfs, which opened up some opportunities for me to study and now, they’re using so many molecular methods to study and develop turf and develop new varieties of turf and phenotype through gene sequencing, along with the traditional plant breeding, I think it’s just really interesting how the molecular biology has really taken a foothold in turfgrass science. It’s a wonderful tool, and back in the day I started – tissue culture, that was cutting-edge, and now we’re sequencing the genes. It’s just been very interesting to see that evolution.
TTZ: Applying that, looking forward, what should we be looking for from the next generation of turfgrass scientists? A lot of those have been your students – you mentioned before, they’re all a family and doing different work – what do you think we should look for from those guys?
MTP: I think they’re just going to continue on that wavelength of new technologies now, spectral imaging and using drones, I think will become a large part of how superintendents are going to get a better idea of what’s going on on the golf course, from tee to green. So utilizing
those technologies, drones and multispectral imaging and the molecular-based tools to advance turfgrass and fungi. So getting into some of what has already started, I’d like to think that maybe there will be some more bentgrasses coming into the south again, I kind of think maybe within the next ten to fifteen years, we might see some bentgrass varieties coming in, maybe regrassing those ultradwarfs with bentgrass. That’s just the cycle of the way our world works, so advances with bentgrasses and more heat tolerance and disease resistance could lend itself to a better grass than the old Penncross used to be that we started with in the 80s down south.
TTZ: So this is one of those awkward questions when you get asked when you’re about to retire and you have to brag a little bit, but I think you’ve earned that privilege – what do you feel is your greatest career accomplishment, looking back?
MTP: I think it’s mentoring the grad students that came through my program, and to see where they are today. They’re all in professional fields, several with Ph.D.s, some still in turf, some in industry. I think my greatest accomplishment was mentoring them.
TTZ: That’s definitely a great legacy. We’re now seeing more women become interested in turfgrass, whether it’s practical, hands-on management or research, or more of an academic role, and I think a lot of people think of you as a trailblazer in that area. What would you tell women who are entering the field that’s largely been a male-dominated field all these years?
MTP: I would just tell them to jump in and get going, you know. I never had any problems being kind of a male-dominated industry. Everybody’s been extremely respectful and I think it would be wide open and there should be no intimidation factors. Hard work, and you’ll be recognized and appreciated for those efforts, so I’d say go for it.
TTZ: This podcast is for Mississippi Turfgrass members, although I am sure that others far and wide will love to hear about your career and your background, but I wanted to talk for a minute about industry associations and I know that you have very generously shared your time and expertise with multiple organizations like that and I just want to speak to why is that important for you as a researcher and how do you feel that contributes to the advancement of actual turfgrass managers out in the field?
MTP: I kind of alluded to it before – to share that information on research, as a research professor, you just do the research and you write up the results, and it’s really the extension people that extend that information, so sometimes I’m in my own little vacuum and it’s fun ot be able to extend that information that has been developed in my lab or from other people’s work and sharing that practical information to the turf managers so then they can in turn utilize some of those tidbits of information and see if that can help them manage their turf so it can be as healthy as it can be. A healthy turf is a happy turf – or a happy turf is a healthy turf. So that’s why when I was invited to talk at conferences and stuff, I was very willing to do that and engage with the superintendents and turf managers. Looking out when you’re talking, you see them nodding like, “oh yeah, I know what she’s talking about.” And just that connection.
TTZ: Upon your retirement, this summer, what will you miss most about your work?
MTP: Probably coming into the lab and doing diagnostics. I could sit at the scope for hours and hours and look at turf and what’s growing in that turf. And the people, the students. I’m going to miss all that.
TTZ: Let’s talk about the fun part of retirement. What are your plans?
MTP: I’m not going to do anything! I’m just going to wake up and see what the day brings to me. I love working in my yard and maintaining my grass, my lawn. Pruning and doing a lot of I call it yard work, but it’s just maintaining. That’s the old horticulturalist in me. Maybe, I was supposed to go on some trips, but that got cancelled, so maybe in 2022 we can start going places again and do some international travel is one of my plans. I have sisters that live in town, so we can hang out together, just visit family and friends.
TTZ: That sounds lovely. We talked about this earlier… I hear that you used to play golf and you maybe considered taking that back up – true or false?
MTP: True. I decided last fall when I was riding around MSU golf course looking for diseases to bring the students out, I was like, “Man I need to get my clubs out of the mini storage and start swinging them again and playing nine holes.” I played a lot in grad school, and played a lot with my Dad back in that time and I think it would be fun to pick it up again.
TTZ: I suggested this and I really think you should follow up on it – I think you could parlay your golf course superintendent connections to get some golf course perks, maybe some lessons…
MTP: I don’t know, probably not, but I’ll talk with the superintendents when I go out there.
TTZ: I’m just going to put this out there. You’re too nice to call those favors in after all your work, but any GCS listening, roll out the red carpet…
MTP: When I go to one of their courses, I’ll for sure contact them before I head out there. And I would like to say, speaking of golf courses, that throughout my career, Brad Suggs, and Bill Coloredo who used to be at Old Waverly and Pat Sneed and Mississippi State Golf Course… they opened their courses to me to do research and that was very very special and nice to be able to be on a working course and do research. So without those two golf courses, I couldn’t have done a lot of what I did and a lot of the research I was able to successfully do and had grad students working at those golf courses, doing their masters thesis research. So I just want to say thank you to them for opening up their golf courses as a research laboratory to me. They were very generous in doing that.
TTZ: Fantastic community with some really exceptional people for sure.
MTP: I’d like to also thank everybody that I’ve worked with in the turf teams, the people that came and went and are here today, for the support of MTA. When I first started, I got some seed grant money from them to kind of get my program jumpstarted. And to the other associations that provided funding for my research – Louisiana, Mississippi golf courses, and Alabama Turf Foundation – they were very open and generous and supportive of my research and supporting grad students. Without those roots and associations, it would have been difficult to start a program and keep it going. And I just appreciate their willingness to work with me and support me.
TTZ: I am sure that all of those individuals and groups and organizations were delighted to be able to be a part of that. On behalf of MTA and Alabama Turfgrass Association and all of those, I wish you a big congratulations on a retirement well-deserved, well-earned, and a very exciting career.
MTP: Thank you so much. It’s kind of crazy it’s over – time flies.
TTZ: You may spend your first six months to a year of retirement in shock that you actually made it there.
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